15 hours ago
Though health issues leave me behind schedule in the garden I saw last night that my peas, garlic, shallots, onions and radishes are all poking through and are on track. There is no sign yet of the early spuds or beetroot and this week the kids and I plant leeks, carrots and a second helping of peas. The strawberries and fruit bushes look set for another bumper crop and we already have a glut of rhubarb. However, the annual humiliation has hit me again.
261 days ago
The broad bean crop this year was a bit of a disaster and we shall gloss over that. But I have had some success with dwarf French beans which have supplied a few meals and keep on going. They are, as I have explained to Joshua, magic beans. You see them below as picked, a deep purple almost black. But you then boil them and they turn green. Magic. There are about two more meals of beans and then where the plants were growing will be used for another couple of rows of radishes to be ready, pickled, for ShareStock.
281 days ago
Produced last night, these will be for the salads at ShareStock. I need to make at least two more jars of this size for the event plus more for the Autumn and winter family consumption. Hence, I am clearing a bit more of the garden to plant more radishes in a week or so to ensure that happens. The radishes are pickled in a South East Asian sauce including cider vinegar, sugar, a bit of salt and pepper plus mustard seeds and a home grown chilli. Yum, yum.
317 days ago
The first three and a half litres of home made ginger beer should be ready within 24 hours. The ginger beer bug plant is bubbling away and the next batch will be ready for bottling a week today. Meanwhile, the elderflower bush at the top of our upper field by the churchyard is in full flower, flowers we picked on Saturday afternoon.
571 days ago
Both harvests have been good this year. I picked all the peppers, both the soft bell shaped ones and the spicier long green ones, earlier this week. The chilli plants are still turning red so what you see below is just the first crop. There will be a stack more to come and, after last year’s bumper crop we are still working through the dried chillies from 2021. Even an Anglo Indian household like this one cannot keep up with what our gardens supply.
639 days ago
I hear that there was a near biblical deluge yesterday and it looks like there is plenty of rain ahead back at the Welsh hovel. And I have a couple of assistants going in to water both the garden and the big lawn so I hope I shall return to something in good shape. As long promised, here is what I have turned the jungle into. The project is far from finished but its no longer a jungle.
664 days ago
Much to my surprise, all 12 tomato seeds have taken. Thus, I worked late into the night on a small patch of the jungle, bringing it into life as a tomato bed. In addition to the ten plants I was given by a friend, I hope to be drowning in tomatoes by autumn. We shall see. It was about nine when I finished. I leant on my rake, pondering the last roped-off patc
744 days ago
At the hovel, we are working our way through the last of the winter cabbages. The last four sit waiting to be picked. But now we are onto the 2022 harvest, we have already enjoyed the first crops planted this year, proving one of my doubters wrong!
780 days ago
Having parted company with the chap who managed the garden I am now in sole charge and I know that I shall make blundering errors and will just have to learn from my own mistakes. In fact, as a kind reader pointed out, I made one with my early radish planting, something I have started to correct today.
793 days ago
Last night, the remaining squashes stored from the Autumn went into a stew. Today at lunchtime we ate the last of the winter potatoes seasoned with almost the last of my dried herbs, some rather miniscule sprouts from the winter crop and a small cauliflower from the same vintage,all of which you can see below. The last of my stored apples were used to make an apple sauce for a joint of pork.
798 days ago
There were some who suggested that planting raidishes on the last day of January was doomed to failure. I suggest an apology is in order as the photo below demonstrates. The next line of radishes goes in in two weeks time along with a couple of other early vegetables. Meanwhile I still have some winter sprouts, a cauliflower and a bit of cabbage to harvest. It is a non stop production line here.
814 days ago
Last week, we finished the last jar of 2021 radishes preserved South East Asian style. They were a big hit with the Mrs and myself although Joshua, an increasingly fussy eater, was not so impressed. But it is now almost February so it is time for the first planting of 2022. I am conscious that there may still be a stack of frosts to come, so the one line of radishes is covered with plastic cloches, wide enough for me to add a second protected line in a month’s time, the idea being to harvest throughout the year so we have enough both to eat fresh and to pickle.
919 days ago
The cooking apples keep falling from the tree which sits on the edge of my vegetable garden, the area formerlly known as “the jungle.” There is only so much stewed apple we can make – I still have two large jars in the fridge and you can’t eat apple crumble every day. So last night it was chutney making.
938 days ago
Drowning in radishes, gherkins and apples here at the Welsh Hovel the three find themselves in a salad almost every day. But still that is not enough to use up everything on offer and so yesterday I tried an experiment. Food should not only taste great but should look gorgeous too. Don’t you agree?
980 days ago
P, who has been looking after the gardens here at the Welsh Hovel during my near two month absence, has left them in great shape as photos that will follow over the next few days will show. But he also left a couple of gifts.
1099 days ago
The concrete bases, where asbestos clad sheds once stood in the area formerly known as the jungle, have now been ripped up with the concrete lying at the bottom of what will be the Ha Ha. And with big planks salvaged from inside the big green barn, the snake barn, which – pro tem – stops one seeing the house from the garden, two small vegetable patches have been created. Yesterday, being a non nursery day for Joshua, we went gardening.
